Electric vehicles (EV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) can generally take five to seven hours to fully recharge using standard 110V electrical outlets. As such, a vehicle owner typically connects the vehicle to an electrical outlet every night to recharge overnight so that the vehicle is available for use the next day. This can become a tedious task for the owner and one that the owner is likely to forget to do. If the owner forgets to connect an EV the previous night, the EV may not have enough charge to run. If the owner forgets to connect a PHEV the previous night, the PHEV may still run, but only on gasoline rather than electricity because there may not be enough charge.
To address this issue, some vehicle manufacturers have developed fast recharging circuitry to recharge the vehicles rapidly so that the owner does not have to recharge the vehicle overnight. However, fast recharging can require higher current loads than are currently available through standard 110V outlets. As such, the recharge location would have to be rewired to support the higher load. This could be expensive. Also the higher load could impose strain on the electrical grid. Some vehicle manufacturers have also developed longer lasting batteries to operate for longer periods between recharges. However, these batteries can raise safety concerns and disposal issues and could be expensive. These solutions to the nightly manual connection have not been very effective or practical.